Trinity Lutheran Seminary is the only Lutheran seminary in North America that has an intentional partnership with an Episcopal seminary. Given Trinity's rich history, it is fitting that this unique partnership resides here.  

In the 1990s, Professor Walter Bouman of Trinity Lutheran Seminary and Dean William Petersen of Bexley Hall Seminary were deeply involved in drafting what would eventually become Called to Common Mission, the agreement that resulted in full communion between the ELCA and the Episcopal Church. Both were convinced that theological education was an area where Lutherans and Episcopalians should collaborate. In 1999, Bexley Hall, located in Rochester, N.Y., established a satellite campus at Trinity Lutheran Seminary. In 2004, this satellite location was accredited to offer the Master of Divinity degree in partnership with Trinity. In 2008, due to Bexley Hall's success in Columbus, the seminary's New York location closed and the operations consolidated here.

When Walter Bouman gave his last and memorable sermon in Trinity's Gloria Dei Worship Center in May 2005, he expressed great joy over the partnership between the two seminaries. Walter had spent more than 20 years laying the groundwork in Lutheran-Episcopal dialogue that would lead to full communion and the subsequent relationship between Trinity and Bexley Hall. 

Bexley Hall, founded in 1824, is the third oldest seminary in the Episcopal Church and the first located west of the Allegheny Mountains. In 2012, Bexley Hall entered into a federated partnership with Seabury-Western (Episcopal) Seminary, of Chicago, to form what is now called Bexley Seabury. Tom Ferguson, Bexley's Academic Dean and a fine theologian, is a fixture in community life around campus. Roger Ferlo, President, teaches here but resides in Chicago, where Bexley Seabury's Doctor of Ministry program is located, interestingly, in the ELCA's Churchwide headquarters. 

Trinity and Bexley Seabury share this campus, faculty, worship, community life, academic calendar, and even commencement.  What they do not share is a blended theology. In other words, we do not take elements from what it means to be Lutheran and what it means to be Episcopal, throw it all into a blender, and out comes some form of Lutherpiscopal. The presence of both seminaries works to strengthen the theological work of all students. In the presence of the other, we must learn to articulate and nuance our traditions with theological precision. The presence of these two traditions on campus broadens the horizons of all.

Trinity's ecumenical makeup runs even deeper. Our Registrar recently informed me that Trinity's student body is the most ecumenical of all of our ELCA seminaries. Whereas ELCA students constitute about two-thirds of our enrollment, the other third includes African Methodist, Apostolic, Baptist, Church of God, Episcopal, Greek Orthodox, LCMS, NALC, Methodist, Non-denominational, Old Catholic, Presbyterian, Quaker, Roman Catholic, and United Church of Christ.  We even have a student who self identifies as "in transition" and another as "agnostic."

As Trinity forms leaders for Christ's church at work in an increasingly pluralistic world, being formed in a context of intentional ecumenism is a great gift that Trinity offers.   

In the abiding hope of the empty tomb,